This may seem crazy, but I want to know if I can put an old Stanley plane iron/blade into a new wood river plane, specifically a number 5.

The reason is that Chris Schwarz recommends buying a vintage jack plane and using the original blade with an 8” radius for hogging off material. Then buying a new blade and chip breaker set for fine work.

But I’d rather reverse things: buy a new plane and an old blade. Then put the radius on the old blade and use it for hogging off material. New blades for new planes are much more expensive than an old blade on ebay (yes, I’m cheap!)

But will this work? I called woodcraft technical support and they said they didn’t know if the thickness of the blades would allow this.

So I thought maybe someone with both an old stanley and a new wood river could test it out. I’d be grateful for any information you could provide.

The old Stanley jack planes are cheap enough that you could buy one and put it to use (with its old iron sharpened to an 8” radius) for hogging off material. You wouldn’t have to fettle it, and you’d have two dedicated planes instead of having to switch out the irons in your new plane.

I wouldn’t think that it would work. I have not tried it (I have a WR 4) but the blades that come with them are substatially thicker than the old stanley blades. I would think that there would be a lot of slop between the frog and the lever cap. To use an IBC blade (which are similar to the stock WR blade) in an old stanley, record, etc. the mouth has to be opened up on the plane. I agree with Brett. I haven’t paid more than $10 for my jack planes and that seems like the way to go.

Really? I know the WRs have thicker irons, but can’t you just tighten the screw the lever cap latches on to in order to compensate? And the Frog adjusts forward and backward like a Bedrock, so I’m not seeing the problem. The only issue I potentially see is in the Y depth adjuster being too big, but I doubt that’d actually be a problem.

As long as it fits in the plane it will work. The thickness of the blade is compensated by moving the frog back. That said, a second plane is a lot better idea. I don’t like having to keep readjusting things.

When I started fishing semi-seriously several years ago, I couldn’t figure out why pro bass fishermen needed so many rods. Sometimes they have a dozen or more rods on their boat decks, all tied with different lures. Why couldn’t they just cut the lure off their line and tie on another? It finally made sense to me when I realized how much time they would waste in tournaments constantly changing lures.

Hand planes are the same way. You don’t want to have to change out blades when you move from hogging to flattening to smoothing. Some people advocate buying a bevel-up jack plane with three blades, each sharpened for a different use. But to me that seems like a huge hassle, constantly having to change and reset each blade.

As cheap as old Stanley Bailey planes are, it’s easer and quicker to have one rod for each lure—er, one plane for each application.

To expand on Brett’s point, when you switch out the blade, its not as simple as that. When hogging out wood with a jack, you need a wider mouth, so the frog gets opened up. For finish you need to close it. You will find that once you find that sweet frog spot for smoothing, you’re not going to want to move that frog, EVER.

Dave, I understand cheap, I don’t believe I’ve ever spend over $10 on a #5. If your not into taking a hunk of rust and shining and tuning it up, it’s understandable. But guys like Brandon and I have a sickness, so we do it for fun. We’ll usually have an extra laying around we’ll part with for a reasonable price. Ebay is nuts right now, the prices are a bit out of line. Hitting some flea markets, antique shops and garage sales usually turns up a few projects for me.